CHAPTER ONE
Dillon Alexander pulled his truck to the shoulder of the road and threw it into park. At least he assumed he was on the shoulder. There were nine inches of snow making it impossible to know where the shoulder was exactly. Or where the road was, for that matter. The tire tracks from the cars and trucks that had braved the elements cut into the heavy, wet white inches, but they’d just been guessing as well.
This was one of the storms where they told people to flat-out stay off the roads. And yet, here he was. Because people didn’t fucking listen. Which was pretty much why doctors had jobs in the first place.
Four vehicles involved. Paramedics on the scene. Police are responding. The police scanner that he insisted on having on whenever he was outside the hospital squawked on the seat beside him.
The paramedics had beaten him to the scene, which was good. They’d have supplies and equipment. But no way was he not going to show up. He got out of the truck and slammed the door, pulling his gloves on as he trudged up the slight incline toward the flashing red-and-blue lights of the police cars and ambulances. He wasn’t technically a first responder, but his two years with Doctors Without Borders had taught him that, in the moment, people tended to care less what your official job description was and more that you knew how to stop bleeding and establish an airway.
He knew that everyone in his small hometown was questioning whether Chance could provide him with the challenge and stimulation and excitement he was used to when providing care in other countries and in the busy ER in Houston.
But as Dillon rounded the front of the first of two ambulances, he had his answer.
Challenge, stimulation, and excitement? Check, check, and check. Even with only her ass sticking out the door of the blue sedan, Dillon knew who was kneeling on the back seat of that car. Kit Derby. Dressed in knee-high black leather boots and fitted black pants that molded to the best ass he’d ever ogled. As he did now as he approached the car.
“I’m here. What’s going on?” Dillon asked Hank, the EMT standing by the car, and probably also ogling the view.
“Delivery.”
Dillon nodded. Then stopped and frowned. “Delivery?”
“Yep.”
“A baby?”
“Yep.”
Jesus. A pregnant woman in a wrecked car in the middle of a blizzard?
“Mom is stable?” Dillon asked. He took a step closer to the open back door of the car. A delivery in a car wasn’t the easiest thing even when everything went well. Add in the cold temps, the whipping wind, the snow that had cut the visibility to almost nothing, and then any possible complications, and this could get dramatic quick.
“She’s thirty-nine weeks and pulled over because her water broke,” Hank said. “The car behind her didn’t see her until it was too late. Hit the brakes, slid, and smashed into her backside. The driver hit his head hard; his wife has a possible tibial fracture. Otherwise, they’re okay.”
“And the delivery—”
Just then he heard the squall of a newborn. He felt the smile stretch his lips. That was a good sign.
“Everything under control,” Hank said. “Kit and Avery came upon the accident and were the ones to call it in. I guess Kit got in the car to calm the woman down, but by the time we got here, Kit already had her in position and pushing.”
Dillon nodded at the good report. And then froze. And not because of the negative-ten-degree wind chill.
Kit had just delivered a baby.
Kit Derby. The town psychiatrist.
He immediately moved around the car to the other door and yanked it open.
“Hey!” Kit shouted as cold air and snow swirled in.
Fuck. Dillon glowered at her, not showing any chagrin, but he moved in to block the doorway with his body. “What the hell are you doing?” he demanded.
She was cradling a newborn baby against her chest, as a matter of fact. “I’m hoping that you’ll get your ass around this car and either take this baby before he freezes or take care of Sarah,” she shot back.
He assumed Sarah was the woman lying on the car seat without her pants on. Also probably freezing.
Fuck. He was such an idiot. But only around Kit Derby. Dillon slammed the door shut and strode around the car—or tried to. He swore as he slid, rather than stomping like he wanted to. He braced his hand on the car to keep from going down and arrived at the open door a moment later.
“Baby good?” he asked shortly.
“Apgar is eight,” she reported.
“Get him into the ambulance,” Dillon told her. The mother would need his attention more than a healthy full-term baby.
Kit moved to get out of the car, the blanket Hank had given her wrapped around the baby and over his head. With her arms full and her fucking high-heeled boots that were in no way practical for snow, Kit scooted back awkwardly, and Dillon reached for her. He put his hands on the hips of the woman he very carefully never touched—well, almost never—and gripped her firmly as she moved to get first one foot, then the other, on the slick ground.
He pulled her up against his body to steady her and to block the wind as she straightened. One of her boots slid on the pavement, and he wrapped an arm around her middle, pulling her even closer and bracing his feet to keep them both upright.
Thankfully, Hank was right there, taking the baby and heading the short distance to the ambulance. Dillon had no time to think about how much he loved having Kit in his arms and up against him. “You good?” he asked quickly, loosening his hold slightly but not letting go until he knew she was solid.
“Yeah.” She put an elbow in his gut and pushed him back. “Get to the mom. Her name is Sarah. She’s driving through on her way to Illinois.”
For just a flash, Dillon was annoyed by the elbow. He’d been helping her. But he shrugged it off. It wasn’t the first or last time Kit Derby would annoy him. She’d been annoying him since the third grade.
Dillon ducked into the car. “Hi, Sarah. I’m Dr. Alexander.” The woman gave him a small smile, but she looked on the verge of tears. She was a long way from Illinois, in a blizzard, and had just given birth on the side of the road. Any of those things would have rattled someone by itself, but she had all three.
He gave Sarah a quick exam and then turned to call for a blood-pressure cuff and other supplies. Before he could make a sound, Kit handed him the cuff, some clean towels, and gauze pads.
“Thanks,” he said tersely. And he wasn’t even sure why he felt terse. She was helping him. But he and Kit just always rubbed each other the wrong way, no matter what. He swore that she could be giving him one of her own kidneys, and he’d be irritated on some level. And vice versa. There was a lot to that, but he didn’t have time to think about it right now. Or ever. He’d spent hours and hours of his life thinking about Kit Derby and why she made him crazy.
He checked Sarah’s blood pressure and other vitals, asked her a few more questions, and got her ready for transport to the hospital. “You’ll be okay till we can get you up to the hospital, but we’ll have to do some stitches,” he told her. “And get you started on an IV for hydration and some antibiotics.”
“When can I see my baby?” she asked.
“The second I get you into that ambulance,” he told her with a smile. “I’ll bet he can’t wait to see you, either.”
He wanted to get baby and mom skin-to-skin and get a better look at the kid.
Dillon backed out of the car as Hank, who had handed the baby off to his partner, got into the back seat and draped Sarah with a clean blanket, then helped her slide across the seat to the door. Once she was on the edge of the seat, Dillon bent and scooped her up in his arms, carrying her to the ambulance.
Hank and Mike got her situated and hooked up to an IV. Dillon also instructed them to give her some mild pain medication. Then he swung to look at Kit, whom he sensed right behind him.
“What the hell, Kit?” he asked, having to raise his voice over the wind.
She scowled at him. “What the hell what?”
“You delivered a baby!”
“Yeah.” She planted her hands on her hips. “You’re welcome.”
“I’m welcome?” he asked.
Her long hair was whipping around her face in the wind, the snowflakes bright white against the ebony color. Her brown eyes were flashing, and dammit, he wanted to kiss her. In spite of the storm, in spite of the patients in the back of the ambulance, in spite of the fact that she was one of the most infuriating people he knew, he wanted to kiss her. Right there and then.
As always.
Fortunately, Bree McDermott joined them just then. She was a cop and Kit’s best friend.
“Kit, what are you doing here?” she asked, raising her voice to be heard over the wind as she approached them.
“I was with Avery when she got the call,” Kit said. “It’s not like she was going to drop me off at home before responding.”
“So what’s going on?” Bree asked.
“Dr. Derby forgot which end of the body she specializes in,” Dillon said. He knew he was frowning, but it was more about the fact that Kit had been driving around in this shitty weather. No one should be out in this except the people who really needed to be. She’d been with Avery, who was the town’s fire chief and, obviously, a first responder. But Kit didn’t need to be here. At an accident scene like this, all the workers were at risk of another car coming by and losing control and plowing into them, or the cars they were working on and in could suddenly slide down the ditch, or hell, they could all end up with frostbite. Unnecessary personnel were simply a liability. She should be at home in front of her fireplace.
And then there was the fact that even standing in the middle of a blizzard, freezing his ass off, he wanted Kit with an intensity that pissed him off. Big-time. And it had been going on for eleven years now. Just not being around her was the only way to avoid the ache she created in him.
So what had he done? He’d moved from Houston—a nice, healthy eight-hundred-some miles away—to Chance three months ago. He now lived four blocks from her.
Stupid fucking idiot that he was.
“Dr. Alexander is just pissed because he didn’t get to be the big hero this time,” Kit said with the snotty tone that was incredibly familiar to him and always made him grit his teeth. And want to strip her down.
Dillon coughed and concentrated on the fact that she had delivered a baby, in a snowstorm, on the side of the road. Yep, that worked. He was ticked off all over again.
Bree looked around, almost as if she was trying to find a reason she could leave Kit and Dillon alone. Though, in general, their friends knew that leaving them alone was not a great idea.
“What are you talking about?” Bree finally asked.
“How would you feel if I were counseling someone with depression?” Dillon asked Kit.
“Like I was glad that person was talking to someone—and someone who was at least marginally qualified. Unless you skipped your psych rotation or something,” Kit said.
“I kicked ass on my psych rotation,” Dillon said, his irritation warming him in spite of the cold air. And the chill from Kit.
In fact, he’d very carefully stayed objective during his psych rotation and had resisted any urge to self-analyze. Something a lot of his classmates hadn’t been able to boast. But everyone had a few demons. It was a fact of life. You just had to handle it. And not hang out with know-it-all, never-hold-back-an-opinion shrinks.
“Well, I kicked ass on my OB rotation,” Kit said. “I do have a medical degree, and at last count, I’ve delivered more babies than you have.”
Son of a bitch.
It was always a fucking competition between them. He was just as guilty as she was. And they were about fifty-fifty on who was ahead.
This time she won. In spite of his time in Africa and in the busiest ER in Houston, he had delivered only three babies ever.
“Really?” Bree asked. “You’ve delivered babies?”
“Five. Counting today,” Kit confirmed.
Bree’s eyes widened. “You delivered a baby today?” Bree’s eyes went to the ambulance where the new mother and baby were.
“Yes. I was the first medical person on the scene,” Kit said.
A gust of wind made her wobble on her boots, but she looked completely composed. She wasn’t even shivering. Drove Dillon crazy.
“And your first thought at an accident scene is to get between a woman’s legs and check her cervix?” Dillon snapped.
“When her water has already broken and she’s screaming that she’s in labor?” Kit asked. “Yes.”
“You should have waited for the EMTs,” Dillon said with a scowl.
“You mean I should have waited for you,” Kit said.
“I am the doctor here.”
“You’re not the only doctor here!”
“You’re on my turf, Kit, and you know it.” Dillon couldn’t keep his voice from rising no matter how hard he tried.
“Right. Between a woman’s legs is your turf. How could I forget?” Kit shot back.
Dillon stared at her, torn between amazement―that she’d actually said that in that tone of voice in front of someone else―and laughing. Because that was a pretty good comeback. But amazement won. Kit yelled at him. She’d even thrown a beer bottle at his head once. But she never did it in front of other people. As far as anyone knew, Kit was cool and collected. Always. She was snarky and bitchy and snotty from time to time. But her voice never rose, her cheeks never flushed, her teeth never ground together. She was completely unruffled by him.
In private, that was a different situation entirely, though.
“Okay, Dillon,” Bree said, pointing to the ambulance. “In there with the patient. Kit,” she said to her friend, “Avery’s car—go home. And change your shoes.”
Kit looked down at her black leather boots. They were covered in all the things expected from delivering a baby by the side of the road—blood, snow, mud, and . . . other stuff. Dillon didn’t even try to hide his grin. Even if she could shoot tequila, drink beer, put away half a pizza, and swear like a sailor behind closed doors, she was a lady through and through in public. And even in private most of the time. The tequila and beer were generally the reasons for the pizza binges and swearing.
“I haven’t dressed for a delivery in a long time,” she finally said.
“Or for the snow, apparently.” He couldn’t help it. She’d grown up in Chance. This kind of snow happened. A lot. And Kit was the most organized, always prepared person he’d ever met. How had she not dressed to be outside today?
“Ambulance,” Bree repeated to him, pointing.
Fine. The EMTs were done with their workup of the baby and mother. That was where he needed to be right now.
God knew he’d have plenty more opportunities to spar with Kit. Thanks to his love for his family and hometown. Thanks to the free clinic they were trying to open and the fact that he and Kit were arguing over every penny and ink pen and cotton ball. And, of course, thanks to his own stupid fucking idiocy.
“Episiotomy is in chapter four.”
Kit shrieked and spun toward the door, her hand over her heart.
Dillon was back to his office much earlier than she’d expected. Dammit. She slammed the textbook shut and tried to come up with a reason that she’d be in his office that wouldn’t make her look like she was worried about the delivery by the side of the road.
“In all my fantasies about you bent over my desk, a textbook open to photos of gynecologic surgeries was never part of them,” Dillon said as he came into the room and then headed around to the other side of his desk.
His words hit her hard and hot. The jerk. He always said stuff like that. When they were alone. Never in public or with other people around. He was antagonistic whenever there were other people around. But when they were alone . . . he managed to always remind her that there was major chemistry between them. And always had been.
He had to brush really close to her to get around his desk, and Kit held her breath. Then worked really hard to act like she hadn’t just held her breath.
“I was just . . . looking for you,” she lied. She’d been praying that she could avoid him completely.
“Bullshit,” he said with a small laugh. “You’re in here checking to see if you screwed anything up during the delivery.”
She hated him.
No, she quickly corrected, she hated that she cared what he thought. And that he knew her. “I wasn’t worried I’d screwed up,” she said, adding the much only to herself. “I was just checking on what you needed to do to fix her up.” She’d heard him say stitches and knew that Sarah had torn slightly during the delivery. The baby had easily been eight full-term pounds, so that wasn’t a shock.
“Six stitches,” he said, settling into his chair. “She’s fine.”
Kit breathed out in relief. Then she couldn’t help but ask, “Would you have done an episiotomy?” That would have required him making a cut to ease the baby’s passage and would have prevented tearing. But cutting wasn’t ideal, either, and there was controversy over which was better.
“In the back seat of a car? No.”
Kit rolled her eyes. “If she’d been here?”
He shrugged. “Probably not.”
That also relieved her. She had been the first medical provider on scene, and the woman had been in labor. She’d done what she was supposed to do, and she hadn’t hesitated. She wouldn’t hesitate next time, either. And it had turned out well. But the truth was, Dillon was the better physical doctor of the two of them. She was the mental-health expert.
And the further truth was that they were an amazing team. He handled the physical stuff, she handled the emotional stuff, and any patient who had them both—like the people who had been injured during the huge tornado that had hit Chance in June—benefited immensely from having them both.
Like they would from the free clinic she and Dillon were working to open. Yes, it was a community-wide effort, and they had a lot of support from the hospital and the town. But she and Dillon were the driving factors. It seemed that they were both always driving factors for something—neither of them was the type to sit around and enjoy the status quo—and every once in a while, there was a project they both cared about equally. Of course, even within that equally cared-about project, they had to bicker. Dillon wanted their limited funds to go to his ideas, and Kit wanted those dollars for her plans. Which meant they fought, with an audience of board members, on a bimonthly basis. Then again, if it hadn’t been that, it would have been something else. It was just how she and Dillon worked.
“How is Sarah?” she asked.
“Fine. Six stitches isn’t bad. She’s already been up walking a bit. Baby is nursing. He’s perfectly fine, too. She’s called her husband, and he’ll be here tomorrow.”
Kit nodded. “Okay, great. But how is she feeling?”
“I’m sure she’s a little sore,” he said. “I’ve given her something for the discomfort.”
Kit frowned. “How is she doing emotionally? She’s got to be scared. I mean, even though it all turned out well, there could be some big stress setting in. And then the hormones and the pressure of having a newborn and being here alone.”
Dillon didn’t respond immediately, but he gave her a little smile. “She’s really good, Kit. Don’t worry.”
Kit studied his face. He looked confident. As always. And he was an incredibly intelligent guy. Just like she could deliver a baby, if needed, he could handle mental and emotional issues, if needed. She had to trust that.
“Okay. Great.”
“I thought Bree told you to go home,” he said. His gaze tracked over her.
She’d stopped in the locker room and changed into hospital scrubs. And thrown away her boots. She shuddered slightly thinking about trying to clean those. No. Way. She’d just buy new ones.
“Though now you’re dressed like a real doctor,” he said.
How did his eyes on her make her hot even when she was in light-green scrubs? That was so annoying. She frowned. “Knock it off.”
The whole real-doctor thing had gotten old clear back when she’d first decided to specialize in mental health instead of family medicine, cardiology, emergency medicine—like Dillon—or any of the other specialties.
She didn’t believe that Dillon thought what she did was “fake” anything. He’d worked with the Army National Guard and in Africa and in a busy urban emergency room. He, of all specialists, knew about mental health and its connection to physical issues.
But he still had to be an ass sometimes.
“I wanted to check on the patient, and Bree isn’t the boss of me,” she said.
“You wanted to hold the baby,” Dillon replied.
She cleared her throat. So what? Most people liked holding babies. “I wanted to make sure he was okay,” she said.
Dillon looked like he was almost smiling. Almost. “Janice told me you went straight to the nursery.”
“So?”
He shrugged. “So nothing. Just . . . interesting.”
Kit put a hand on her hip. “What does that mean?”
“You just don’t strike me as the maternal type.”
Her mouth dropped open. She was offended by that. Though that didn’t make sense. Why did she care if Dillon thought she liked, and wanted, babies or not? “I don’t?”
“Maybe it’s domestic that I can’t picture,” Dillon said, sitting back in his chair and studying her. “Yeah, I guess that’s a better word.”
“You can’t picture me in an apron, dusting the shelves and baking cookies, and so I’m not maternal?”
He shrugged. “My mom was a homemaker. That’s what I think of. Come on, Dr. Shrink, that makes sense, right?”
“You’re also thirty years old, highly intelligent, and have traveled the world. Surely your view of motherhood is a little wider than cookies and milk after school.”
He gave her a slow grin, and Kit suddenly became aware that she was clenching her hands tightly, her neck was tense, and her voice had risen.
She took a deep breath. He got her going. Every time. He knew her buttons. Damn him.
Before she could blast him, her phone rang. She shot him a glare but pulled her phone from her pocket. It was her mother. She turned and headed into the hallway without a word to Dillon.
“Hi, Mom.”
“Hi, honey. Have you heard from Grandma?”
“No, why?”
Her mother sighed. “They just shut the road out there, and she’s not answering her cell. I’m guessing she let the battery run down, but I want to be sure she’s okay for a day or so until they can get the road cleared.”
Kit frowned. Her grandmother, Grace, was an eighty-five-year-old ball of fire. She still lived out on the family farm, twelve miles outside of Chance. Alone. She handled it for the most part, but she did have an issue—she wasn’t very good at sitting still or being bored. Which was exactly what would happen if she was stuck out there and unable to get outside or drive her rickety old truck around her property. If she got cabin fever, she’d do Lord knew what to alleviate her boredom. She might crawl up into the attic or head into the basement or even try to clear her driveway by herself. She was in good health, generally, but she could easily fall and break her neck, or overtax her heart, or try to lift something and throw her back out.
“No one’s talked to her today?” Kit asked, pacing to the end of the hallway, then turning to pace back.
Dillon came out of his office, and her steps faltered. He was also in light-green scrubs, had about a day’s worth of stubble on his face, and his hair looked like he’d just run his hand through it. How could he look so hot? It was really unfair.
Fortunately, he didn’t notice that she’d stumbled slightly at the sight of him. In fact, he didn’t even glance at her as he headed in the direction of the OB department. Chance Memorial Hospital was tiny. The OB department actually consisted of only four rooms at the end of the hallway, but they’d remodeled them two years ago into beautiful suites.
Kit frowned. He’d just gotten back from checking on Sarah. Had something come up with her or the baby? Kit started after him as her mother told her that no one had talked to Grace since last night when Nick, her oldest son, had tried to talk her into coming into town because of the forecast.
“So no one can get out there to check on her?” Kit asked, keeping Dillon—and his fine ass—in sight. But she was behind him. It wasn’t like she was specifically looking at his ass. Exactly.
“The road is drifted shut about a mile down the road,” her mom told her.
“Crap.” It wasn’t even that Grace wouldn’t necessarily want to leave the house in weather like this; it was more that she wouldn’t be able to. The feeling of being stuck was unpleasant, especially if you were alone. Kit sighed. “Maybe one of the neighbors can get on his snowmobile?”
“We thought of that, too. Just calling to check with everyone.”
Most of those who lived in the countryside around Chance owned snowmobiles. They were primarily recreational, but they could serve a true purpose when the roads were shut to car-and-truck traffic.
“Okay, let me know.” Kit was only half paying attention to her mother as she disconnected. Because, sure enough, Dillon had turned in to the second suite on the right. The room Sarah was in. Kit glanced around. No one else was coming. There was no rush of health-care providers to the room. So there wasn’t a major medical complication.
Still, Kit wanted to say hello to Sarah and make sure she was okay. Dillon was a fantastic physician. Probably the best she knew. But he kind of sucked at the feeling part of medicine. He was a trauma physician, an ex–Army National Guardsman, a guy whose experience included underdeveloped countries, areas devastated by natural disasters, an emergency department in a huge city. He wasn’t the guy to stop and ask a lot of “feeling” questions or take the time to listen to the answers even if he did.
The shrink part of her that could carefully compartmentalize her professional side from her personal side found Dillon fascinating. No, that wasn’t even true—both sides of her found Dillon fascinating. It was the psychiatrist part of her, however, that had figured out that Dillon had gone into medicine because he wanted to help people and was a natural-born hero, but that he’d gone into trauma medicine because he didn’t want to become personally attached to people he might lose.
And she knew that came from losing his longtime girlfriend, Abi, in a car accident their senior year of high school.
She’d further made a note—a professional note, of course—that it showed some really good growth and acceptance that he’d now decided to move home and practice in Chance, where the risk of treating someone, and possibly losing him or her, was much more personal.
However, even with that growth, Dillon’s initial response to a problem was to stride in and fix it.
Kit’s initial response to a problem was . . . to talk about it.
Sarah might not technically be her patient, but Kit wanted to be sure the woman, a stranger to Chance and a brand-new mom, had support while she was waiting for her husband to get to town.
Kit turned in to the doorway, her hand raised to knock on the door frame, but stopped when she heard Dillon ask, “So how are you feeling?”
“Good,” Sarah said. “Tired. But good.”
“I mean . . . are you worried about anything?” he asked.
He was sitting on the foot of Sarah’s bed. Looking incredibly uncomfortable. But he was there.
Kit ducked back into the hallway and took a deep breath. Yeah, he sucked at the bedside-manner thing. But like she’d been looking up episiotomies in his office, he was here. Trying.
Dammit.
This was the problem. If Dillon was just the cocky, territorial adversary he’d been all her life, she could deal with it. With him. But he wasn’t just the guy who beat her half the time—no matter what they did—and who never backed down from a challenge and who gloated whenever he won. He was also the guy who always wanted to get better, no matter how much he hated admitting there were things he wasn’t good at. He was also the guy who pushed her to do better, to try harder, and, yes, even to admit her weaknesses.
It was really hard not to like him sometimes.
It was also really hard to not remember what an amazing kisser he was. And how amazing he was at . . . other things.
But Dillon Alexander was good at everything.
Kit shook herself and headed for the nurses’ station. She shouldn’t be eavesdropping. Janice, the head nurse, could help her get ahold of someone who lived near her grandma. And there was a 100 percent chance that someone had cookies or something behind the counter.
The plate of brownies was like a big welcome smile. Kit reached for one as Janice rounded the corner. “Hey, Kit, I didn’t think you’d be in today,” she said, setting down her armload of charts.
Kit chewed and swallowed her first bite of chocolate and shrugged. “I wanted to check on Sarah and the baby.”
“Oh.” Janice glanced down the hallway. “Why?”
Kit frowned. “I delivered the baby.”
Janice’s eyes grew wide. “You delivered the baby?”
“Yes.” Kit lifted a brow. “You just assumed Dillon did, didn’t you?”
“Well . . . he came in with them. So . . .”
Yeah. Of course she had. It wasn’t her fault. Anyone would have assumed that. “Do you know anyone out by my grandma’s place who has a snowmobile?” she asked, changing the subject of how amazing Dillon Alexander was before it even got started.
“Ted Carter and Jeff McDonald probably both do,” Janice said. “Why?”
“No one’s heard from her since last night, and she’s not answering her phone.” With Dillon out of sight, Kit let those words really sink in. It was probably nothing. Grace often forgot to charge her phone or turn it off vibrate when she got home, and she didn’t carry it around the house with her like she should. Kit was 95 percent sure that her grandmother was fine.
But that 5 percent was suddenly nagging at her.
“Well, why don’t you just have Dillon check on her?” Janice said.
Kit’s eyes snapped up to Janice’s. “Dillon? Why would Dillon check on her?”
“He’s taking the snowmobile out to a few other places. Jack Thomas needs a new O2 tank, and he wants to check on Millie Holden’s incision.”
“And because of the snow, he’s turning them into house calls?” Kit asked. Of course he was. Nothing would stop Dillon from being amazing. She barely stopped herself from rolling her eyes.
“He was going to make both of those stops, anyway,” Janice said with a smile. “He’s just changing the mode of transportation because of the snow.”
He was going to make both of those house stops, anyway. Kit wondered if he wore his superhero outfit under his scrubs. Then she realized that a lot of people thought of those scrubs as superhero outfits.
“Grandma doesn’t need a medical visit,” Kit said. “She needs to be told to stay off ladders, to not try to scoop her own driveway, and that she’s too old to go cross-country skiing. She needs to be scolded right into her easy chair and threatened with major repercussions if she does anything but knit while watching Jimmy Stewart movies.”
Janice laughed. “Yep, sounds like she needs you.”
Kit couldn’t argue with that. She was a pro at knowing the best way to communicate with people, and she could change her approach to fit any situation. Except with Dillon. She couldn’t help that thought flitting through her mind. It seemed that Dillon was the exception to most of her rules. She was generally calm and levelheaded and rational and knew how to get people to listen to her. With Dillon . . . he seemed to override all her good intentions.
But with Grace, Kit knew exactly what she needed. Firm, no-nonsense threats. The last time her grandmother hadn’t been able to get out and around like she was used to had been when she’d had shoulder surgery. She’d been told to stay in the house and take it easy for six weeks. No picking apples or feeding the chickens or weeding the garden or going to water aerobics. So what had she done? She’d climbed up and dusted all her overhead light fixtures. And she’d almost gotten away with it. If she hadn’t stepped off the short ladder and twisted her ankle, she would have. She’d not only sprained her ankle, but she’d messed up her shoulder again, and after the surgery to repair the repair, the family had made her move in with Kit’s mom temporarily so someone could keep an eye on her. Grace was a feisty, stubborn woman who would probably outlive them all—because she kept giving her family heart attacks with her antics.
“I guess I could take a snowmobile out to her place,” Kit said to Janice.
Janice raised both eyebrows. “You don’t seem like the snowmobile type.”
Janice had not only known Kit throughout her practice in Chance, she’d also known Kit growing up. Janice had been a nurse in Chance as long as Kit could remember. So, her guess that Kit didn’t know much about snowmobiles was an educated one.
“I know what a snowmobile is,” Kit said.
Janice laughed. “Well, I guess that’s a start. How are you and Bree such good friends, by the way?”
Kit had to grin at that. Bree McDermott hadn’t always been Kit’s best friend. The loud, daring tomboy had run in a very different crowd from Kit’s in high school. They hadn’t disliked each other; they just hadn’t really known each other. Kit’s head had been in her schoolwork and her million extracurricular projects and, frankly, on Dillon. Beating him out, being better than he was, taking the number one spot from him in anything they both decided to do—which was practically everything—and then, later, around her sophomore year, daydreaming about him. And then trying not to.
“Bree is the yin to my yang,” Kit told Janice.
The older woman nodded. “You two are good for each other.”
They were. Bree, the daredevil, made Kit have fun and try new things, and Kit, the academic, kept Bree grounded and helped her relax. Kit enjoyed wine and sushi and theater. Bree liked beer and burgers and raunchy movies. Kit’s work wardrobe consisted of heels and pencil skirts or pantsuits. Bree wore a police uniform. Kit loved yoga and meditation. Bree jumped out of airplanes for fun.
But Kit loved Bree like a sister. As she did Avery Sparks, Chance’s fire chief and the third musketeer. She valued her girlfriend relationships deeply.
So it kind of sucked that they were both now madly in love. Kit was happy for them. Both women were more . . . at peace . . . now that Max and Jake were in their lives. But that didn’t help Kit’s feelings of being stirred up and restless a bit. She loved feeling at peace. She loved routine. She loved checking off things on her to-do list. And then making a new to-do list. She loved the sense of satisfaction she got when she sat back and looked at her life and her work and her hometown and her relationships. She had everything lined up exactly as she’d wanted it.
And then Dillon had moved back to Chance.
After almost eleven years of being gone. Very gone. Far, far gone.
And things had been good. For years.
Until the third F4 tornado hit their tiny hometown for the third year in a row, while Dillon and his cousins, Jake and Max, had been home for a class reunion. And working beside him for the mental and physical health of their community in the aftermath—the cleanup and rebuilding efforts that had lasted for two weeks—hadn’t even been the worst part.
The storeroom at the hospital where she and Dillon had spent the tornado together had been the worst part.
It had been small and dark and he’d been so . . . there, filling up the space and making her feel warm and safe. And making her feel so needy, so itchy and jittery and scattered. She hated that.
And then he’d kissed her, and she’d forgotten all about the tornado and how much he drove her crazy and how much she hated how great he was at everything. Because he really was great at everything. And that included making out in storerooms.
“Kit?”
Kit shook herself and looked up at Janice. Crap. She’d been daydreaming about him and that damned kiss. Again. “Yeah?”
“I was just asking if you were going to call Bree to go check on your grandma?”
She could. Bree knew Grace very well and would gladly take out her snowmobile. But Kit would have to go along. “I think I want Bree to bring her back to town to my mom’s,” Kit said. “Which means that I’ll have to go and talk her into it.”
Janice nodded. “That’s probably the best plan.”
Though hog-tying her grandmother and strapping her to the back of Bree’s snowmobile didn’t sound appealing. Kit sighed. “Yeah, I’ll call Bree.”
“Call Bree for what?”
Dillon was six foot four and two-hundred-some pounds of solid muscle. How in the hell did he move so stealthily? Kit turned to reply that it was none of his business, but Janice piped up. “Kit needs a ride to her grandmother’s place.”
“Your grandma lives out on Deerpoint Road, right?” he asked.
Kit nodded.
“All those roads are closed.” He reached past Kit and snagged a brownie.
“Yes, I’m aware,” she told him, ignoring the fact that he smelled amazing. Like bury-her-face-in-his-neck-and-just-breathe amazing.
“You’ll need a snowmobile to get out there.”
She blinked at him. Dillon Alexander did not think she was stupid. He thought she was a pain in the ass. But not stupid. So he was just trying to be a pain in the ass. Or something. “What’s your point?”
He turned and leaned an elbow on the counter. And proceeded to look her up and down. Slowly. “You’re not really a snowmobile kind of girl.”
Janice snorted at Dillon’s words that so closely echoed her own. Kit lifted her chin. It wasn’t as if it was an insult to be called not-really-a-snowmobile-kind-of-girl. She was a lot of other kinds of girl—like professional and sophisticated and educated. But it felt like an insult from Dillon.
“Just because I don’t own a snowmobile doesn’t mean that I’m incapable of riding on one.”
“You have real snow boots?”
“Real snow boots?”
“Those things you were wearing outside a little bit ago were not snow boots.”
Well, that was true. “I didn’t know we were going to have to stop in the snow and deliver a baby when I got dressed this morning,” she told him.
“Right. But you’re a small-town Nebraska girl. You know what winter can be like. You should be prepared for anything this time of year.”
Kit pulled a breath in through her nose. She was typically prepared for anything. Overprepared, in most cases. The fact that she hadn’t been this morning—and that Dillon had been there to witness that—rankled. But she was not going to take advice about Nebraska weather from the guy who’d spent almost a decade in Texas and the southern hemisphere. “Thanks for your concern. But I’m fine.”
“I’m just saying that I’m not taking you with me unless you dress appropriately.”
She frowned. “Taking me with you where?”
“To your grandma’s. You have to stop by Jack’s place and see Millie with me, though.”
Kit crossed her arms and watched him lick chocolate crumbs from his fingertips. God, she hated that he had the best mouth she’d ever had the pleasure of having on her . . .
She cleared her throat and forced herself to concentrate. “You’re going to take me to my grandma’s?”
“I’m going out anyway, and as much as Bree likes her snowmobile, I’m guessing she’s got other stuff to do.”
“The accident has to be cleaned up by now,” Kit said.
“Other things like Max,” Dillon said. “If nothing else.”
Right. Bree had Max to do if she wasn’t needed outside in the freezing cold and blowing snow. Even if Bree loved snowmobiling, half of her love for any of her crazy activities had been doing them with Max. Now she didn’t have to leave the house to do things with Max. Kit was a little jealous of her friend anyway, and now that she was thinking about how nice it would be to snuggle up with a hot guy in front of a fireplace, sharing body heat during the blizzard, she wondered if Dillon could see the green in her face.
“I’m going out anyway,” Dillon went on. “No need to get Bree out in the cold.”
“You’d take me along?”
That was not a good idea. She could work beside Dillon. They saw each other at the hospital and around town on a fairly regular basis now that he was living and working here. She could argue with Dillon—about the free clinic, about the color of green the diner used on its new awnings, about her choice of winter weather clothing, and just about anything else under the sun. She could even, sometimes, not argue with Dillon when they were in the diner or the bar with their friends or when they ran into each other in the hallways at the hospital. But alone time with Dillon was not a good idea. Not that they could get into too much trouble in a snowstorm on a snowmobile, but she hadn’t thought they’d get into trouble preparing for their debate competition when they’d been seniors in high school, or studying for finals in medical school, or taking cover during a tornado.
But they had.
Oh, they had.
“Why not?” Dillon asked, pushing away from the counter.
Why not? Why not? As if he didn’t remember when they’d spent extended periods of time alone together. When other people were around, they competed. But when they were alone . . . their clothes fell off.
“You think that’s a good idea?” she asked, meeting his eyes and willing him to acknowledge what she was getting at.
“Sure, no problem,” he said with a shrug.
“Be careful out there. Report in at each stop,” Janice told them, moving to the copier several feet away.
“Will do,” Dillon said, watching her. Then as the machine started spitting out pages, he looked down at Kit. “I think we’ll be okay. It’s a little cold out there to worry about you taking your clothes off.”
Kit felt her mouth fall open, and she didn’t recover until he’d started down the hall. “Hey!” she called after him. “You were the one—” She broke off just as she was about to say that he had been the first to lose his clothes in high school and in medical school. She might have pulled her shirt off first in the storeroom, but it had been hot in there, and . . .
Dillon just chuckled. “I’m leaving in ten minutes, Dr. Derby.”
Damn. Him.